Slacker & Steve's Blog

OPP: Roommate?s Bad Boyfriend

by Slacker And Steve,posted Aug 1 2013 4:22PM

Yi!

Today’s OPP comes from Sheena. She writes:

Yi! My roommate's boyfriend practically lives with us. He's here every day, eats our food, uses our electricity and doesn't contribute at all to our rent or bills. I've never lived with a roomie before, but I think 'Martin' should pay a third of the bills. Am I right or wrong? How do I approach my roommate about this without causing a fight? I can no longer afford to support her boyfriend. I am sure your audience can relate with so many students getting roommates for college this year.
Sheena

Slacker and Steve think we can all agree that roommates just suck. Slacker says that this is an example of where it gets weird because if two people decide to live together and each are paying 50/50, then that means that half of the house belongs to each person. So if Sheena’s roommate has a boyfriend, he can come over and use the roommates half of the house. Slacker doesn’t think the boyfriend should have to pay a third, it’s not like he has his own room there. He thinks it’s a control thing, Sheena is just being petty.

Steve says that since more utilities are being used, the roommate should have to use less utilities and such to compensate for that, or have the boyfriend pay a little. Regardless, Steve thinks she needs to talk to her roommate and figure it out.

What do you think Sheena should do? How should she approach her roommate?